You recently organised an all-day meeting for your company, which took place in a local hotel. In their feedback, participants at the meeting said that they liked the hotel, but they were unhappy about the food that was served for lunch. Write a letter to the manager of the hotel. In your letter: - say what the participants liked about the hotel - explain why they were unhappy about the food - suggest what the manager should do to improve the food in future
Sample Response
Dear Sir or Madam, I would like to thank you for your great support in hosting a corporate meeting for our organisation at your hotel last week. “Eurostars Toledo” hotel has enjoyed some great reputation over the years because of its great service, and this time it was no exception except for that the food quality, which, according to our participants, was not exactly what they expected. I must mention that we liked pretty much everything about the hotel, including its cleanlinesshygiene and cleanliness, great customer service, large lounge area and high-speed internet service. We also liked the fact that the conference hall of your hotel, where we organized an all-day meetingall-day-long meeting without any trouble, was very spacious and comfortable with all kinds of modern facilities and amenities. However, when it came to the food that we were served, I am afraid I cannot say the same, and some of our participants complained about it. Some of the dishesSome of your items were not properly cooked. In fact, I felt like the food was cooked by an inexperienced chefsome amateur chef. Besides, the “Croquetas de Jamon” you servedthe “Croquetas de Jamon”, you served, tasted like it was heated in the microwave, and as a result, it tasted very stale. To address these issuesAnyway, without getting into any further details, I would like to ask you to tell your chefs to be a bit more careful about the food they serve to your valuedvaluable customers. I am hoping that the food quality will improve in future. Wishing you a great day. Yours faithfully, Roger Rodriguez
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter covers all three requirements with specific praise for the facilities and clear examples of undercooked and stale food. However, the entire response is presented as one block, and describing the chef as amateur is unnecessarily confrontational, while the proposed remedy remains vague. Prioritise a professional complaint structure and request concrete actions such as reviewing preparation standards and checking food before service.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The purpose and all bullet points are clear and developed, but the tone briefly becomes insulting and the improvement request lacks specificity.
Replace the amateur-chef remark with objective evidence and ask the manager to introduce clear preparation and quality-control measures.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas progress logically from praise to problems and a requested response, but the absence of paragraph breaks weakens organisation.
Use separate paragraphs for the positive feedback, food complaints, and requested improvements.
Lexical Resource
The letter uses varied vocabulary for hotel facilities and food quality, though repetition and several awkward collocations reduce precision.
Replace phrases such as some great reputation and valuable customers with a strong reputation and guests.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A range of complex structures is mostly controlled, with occasional faulty phrasing and misplaced commas that do not impede meaning.
Revise the sentence containing no exception except and remove the commas separating Croquetas de Jamon from you served.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You recently organised an all-day meeting for your company, which took place in a local hotel. In their feedback, participants at the meeting said that they liked the hotel, but they were unhappy about the food that was served for lunch. Write a letter to the manager of the hotel. In your letter:
- say what the participants liked about the hotel
- explain why they were unhappy about the food
- suggest what the manager should do to improve the food in future
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.